Terrorism and nuclear proliferation -Nils Bohner

“Another variant of nuclear terrorism terrorist acts against nuclear facilities, such as a nuclear plant. In December 1999, for example, a conventional explosive charge discovered and disarmed by a uranium plant in Japan. Chechen groups have also threatened to blow up nuclear power plants, including in Lithuania in 1994.”

‘Since 1995, the IAEA has updated a database of reported incidents and theft of materials that can be used in a nuclear weapon. Reporting to this database is voluntary from today 113 countries. For the period 1993 to 2011, report the total of 2,164 inquiries, of which 399 of these were related to criminal incidents. Annual average for this period were, respectively, 114 and 21 inquiries. For 2011, it reported a total of 147 incidents in which 20 were related to criminal activity. There is therefore no evidence that the interest for illegally obtaining nuclear material has decreased in recent years.”

Nils Bohmer, 13/02-2013

Bellona

Translated from Norwegian

In this article, I will discuss the challenges associated with today’s development of core technologies and knowledge, especially linked to a nascent nuclear arms race in the Middle East and the possibility of nuclear terrorism.

Probably the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard thought little about the consequences of his ideas about a nuclear chain reaction would be when he got them while he waited to cross the street in Budapest in 1933. The development of nuclear weapons in the 1940s led to a technology on one hand can produce energy in large amounts, but in extreme situations can lead to the extinction of all life on earth.

The development of nuclear technology was initially driven by efforts to acquire nuclear weapons for military use. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s speech on “Atoms for Peace”, which he held in the UN General Assembly on 8 December 1953, opened up a large-scale use of this technology in the civil context. USA launched its own program, “Atoms for Peace”, which would promote the use of civil nuclear power in the U.S. and other countries. Among other things, the first nuclear reactors for Iran and Pakistan built under this U.S. program in the 1950 – and 1960’s.

In 1957 created the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This organ has two purposes: To promote the development of civilian use of nuclear technology, and as far as possible prevent nuclear technology being misused military:

“The Agency Shall seek two Accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to Peace, Health and Prosperity throughout the world. It Shall ensure, so far as it is comfortable, that assistance provided by it or at its request or under its supervision or control is not used in such a way as two further any military purpose. ” IAEA Statutes, Article 2

During the 1960’s there was built a number of civilian nuclear reactors for energy production. Essentially there were nuclear weapons states, the U.S., Britain, France, China and the Soviet Union that was responsible for this construction. However, other countries such as Norway and Sweden began to take interest in this new technology. Norway was the first country outside the nuclear powers got a nuclear reactor, t Halden reactor was put into operation in 1959. In addition to developing civilian nuclear power, Sweden had no plans to develop nuclear weapons until well into the 1960’s.

The modern nuclear arms race

Non-Proliferation Treaty of Nuclear Weapons entered into force in 1970. It defines the countries that had conducted a nuclear test before 1 January 1967 that nuclear weapons states, ie countries that are allowed to have nuclear weapons. These countries are the U.S., Britain, France, the Soviet Union and China. Non-nuclear weapon states undertake not to manufacture nuclear weapons, and also to allow the control of the IAEA to prevent that to happen.

All countries except India, Pakistan and Israel have signed this Agreement. Both India and Pakistan have conducted nuclear tests and declared themselves as nuclear weapon states, and it is a poorly hidden secret that Israel has nuclear weapons. North Korea withdrew from the treaty in 2003 and conducted a nuclear test in 2009.

The international community through the IAEA and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty unfortunately proved to be a guarantee that countries other than the five original nuclear weapons states have acquired nuclear weapons. Examples of this include the previously mentioned India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. With the exception of Israel, all these countries have developed their nuclear weapons program under the guise of its civilian nuclear plans.

A country that has signed the non-proliferation treaty, but under strong international suspicions that it is developing nuclear weapons is Iran. The country has had a civilian nuclear program since the 1950s, when the United States with his “Atoms for Peace” program helped Iran started with this technology project. It stayed on until 1979 when the Shah of Iran was overthrown. Iran’s first nuclear reactor is the Russian-built Bushehr reactor that became operational in September 2011.

The reason for the international concern is mainly related to the underground Fordow uranium enrichment facility, near the city of Qom. At this facility, it is possible to concentrate the uranium isotope U-235 to a concentration so as to make nuclear weapons.

Natural uranium has a proportion of U-235 in 0.7 percent, and fuel for a nuclear reactor using a typical U-235 concentration (enrichment) of about 5 percent. All uranium with a U-235 concentration above 20 percent characterized as highly enriched, and can be used to make a single nuclear bomb. In more advanced nuclear weapons, which is found in the major nuclear powers, is uranium with an enrichment of over 90 percent.

According to the latest reports from the IAEA (November 2012) reports that Iran has produced 233 kg of uranium with an enrichment of up to 20 percent. There is no logical reason that Iran is producing uranium with much higher enrichment than they need for their civilian nuclear program – if they have no military targets

The international community, with the IAEA in the lead, has since 2006 persistently tried to get Iran to abandon its enrichment program. Until now, the international community has been powerless, and we’re still unconfirmed rumors that Israel will take matters into their own hands and bomb part of Iran’s nuclear facilities, so as to put Iran’s nuclear program several years ago.

Should Iran get closer to producing a working nuclear weapon, this will most likely trigger a nuclear arms race in the region. Probably this race already started, in 2007, Israel bombed what was probably a Syrian reactor, which could have been used to produce material for nuclear weapons. The reactor was a copy of a North Korean reactor, and it has been speculated that there is a nuclear cooperation between the regimes in North Korea and Syria.

Several other countries in the region, such as Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, has plans to build civilian nuclear reactors. Several of these countries have expressed that if Iran gets nuclear weapons, they will get it. With civilian nuclear reactors, a country both acquire technology and knowledge necessary to develop a nuclear weapons program. A civilian nuclear program can also provide a useful cover for developing atomic weapons, as among other things made in India and Pakistan.

Unfortunately, history shows that the IAEA and the international community does not have enough muscle to stop a dedicated country that really wants to acquire nuclear weapons, such as North Korea has done in recent times. It is also doubtful whether the IAEA’s inspections in Iran will be enough to prevent Iran can produce nuclear weapons.
Nuclear Terrorism

“… Nuclear terrorism is one of the greatest threats to international security.” President Obama, 3 December 2012

During a speech in Washington D.C. the 3rd December 2012 President Obama stressed that there is still too much nuclear material stored without adequate protection and that there are still terrorists who do everything they can to get this. If they get hold of such material will not hesitate to use it, continued President Obama in his speech.

So what can do with terrorists such nuclear material if they get hold of it, and the cases of such attacks have so far uncovered?

Although there are a lot of easily accessible information about a single nuclear weapon can be made, it will still require a relatively highly developed organization and resources to build such a bomb. There is little today to suggest that there are terrorist organizations have sufficient resources to develop an atomic bomb, although in the 1990s have revealed attempts to obtain nuclear weapons from Russia, for example, Al-Qaeda and the Japanese Doomsday cult “Aum Shinrikyo”.

Among other things, it was in the 1990s a lot of talk about the so-called Russian “suitcase bombs”, ie small nuclear bombs that would fit in a suitcase, was the loss of Russia. In 1997, claimed a former member of the Russian Security Council, General Lebed, that about 100 of a total of 250 of these small nuclear bombs were to weigh in Russia. Russian authorities have subsequently denied this strongly, and General Lebed died in a helicopter accident in 2008.

Instead of a terrorist group making their own nuclear weapons or unable to gain access to a nuclear weapon, it is more likely that a terrorist group would pursue a so-called “dirty bomb,” which consists of a conventional explosives and radioactive material. The explosion would spread radioactive material and cause a serious contamination of a limited area. Such an action can in addition to contamination cause fear and panic. Nevertheless, the consequences will then be much less than if a full-scale nuclear was used.

It has so far not been any cases that large-scale use of such “dirty bombs”, but radioactive sources have been used on a smaller scale. An example of this is the poisoning of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive substance polonium-210 in London in 2006.

Another variant of nuclear terrorism terrorist acts against nuclear facilities, such as a nuclear plant. In December 1999, for example, a conventional explosive charge discovered and disarmed by a uranium plant in Japan. Chechen groups have also threatened to blow up nuclear power plants, including in Lithuania in 1994.

Since 1995, the IAEA has updated a database of reported incidents and theft of materials that can be used in a nuclear weapon. Reporting to this database is voluntary from today 113 countries. For the period 1993 to 2011, report the total of 2,164 inquiries, of which 399 of these were related to criminal incidents. Annual average for this period were, respectively, 114 and 21 inquiries. For 2011, it reported a total of 147 incidents in which 20 were related to criminal activity. There is therefore no evidence that the interest for illegally obtaining nuclear material has decreased in recent years.

This article was printed in Propatria Issue No. 1, 2013.

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